This article considers infrastructure as a site for the examination of governance and society in Lebanon, in a context of failure of the state to provide basic public services. The argument is threefold. First, public infrastructure is a site of political struggle. Political actors seek to make infrastructure serve certain political and social interests, demonstrating their belief that these state institutions and instruments produce a range of effects worth competing for. Second, the article challenges the view that that neoliberalism and sectarianism are radically narrowing and marginalizing the state and its institutions. Third, despite failing to deliver the expected service outcomes, the complex assemblage of more-or-less reformed infrastructural policy instruments produces strong social effects in terms of wealth distribution. These instruments accentuate Lebanese society’s gaps and inequalities. This outcome is largely unintended, as is often the case with public policy instruments. It is a product of the work of state institutions, however, and not proof of their absence. To make this argument, this article explores urban services in Beirut through the main types of instruments that successive governments and their advisers—commonly from the World Bank and other international organizations—have adopted for their reform: the geographic boundaries of the zones where urban services are organized; the services’ financing instruments, such as subsidies and pricing public-private partnerships.

While the recent political showdown over where to connect the Esra Gul barge to Lebanon’s power grid is indicative of the country’s unequal electricity supply, it also unearthed something more fundamental, namely, how electricity subsidies exacerbate geographical and social inequalities. Indeed, one major problem facing Electricité Du Liban (EDL) concerns the fact that production costs exceed revenues from consumers. For many years, the difference has been covered/subsidized by the state but these subsidies impact citizens differently depending on where they reside. (First paragraph)

The aim of this article is to analyse one ordinary energy transition underway in three Mediterranean metropolises in which urban natural gas networks have been implemented in the past twenty years: Istanbul in Turkey, Cairo in Egypt and Sfax in Tunisia (the country's second largest agglomeration). To do so, we will define an analytical framework based on a few studies which have focused primarily on low carbon energy transitions and argue that despite the differences in terms of technology it is interesting to view these transitions in relation to the urbanization of energy issues, thus allowing us to escape from the unsatisfying dichotomy between cities and countries that are "advanced" and "behind". In doing so, this article aims to relativize technological determination by showing its geographically and socio-economically based nature and to return a certain number of political issues to the forefront of analyses of transitions. We will begin by presenting the case cities and underscoring their specificities as emerging cities. Secondly, we will define an analytical framework based on research into energy transitions in cities while also taking into account research into urban infrastructure networks. Then we will analyse the cases based on the previously defined criteria. The final section will look at what we can learn from these cases.

The fight against climate change, eco-responsible urban development and the control of energy consumption have emerged as pressing public issues on the southern coast of the Mediterranean over the past several decades. Politicians and public authorities as well as private actors, civil society organizations (NGOs and the voluntary sector) and international bodies present in the countries of this region have all engaged with these challenges, which are particularly pronounced in cities. As spaces, cities now account for the bulk of the population and energy consumption; and as complex systems of institutional and economic actors, they are highly sensitive loci for experiments in sustainable urban development (SUD). Subsequently, the methods, applications and adaptation measures required for meeting this new imperative have been under discussion since the early 2000s, if not earlier. The aim of this thematic issue is to examine the activities and projects underway to promote sustainable urban development, be it at the scale of one or several cities. Thus, our focus is not to describe the environmental vulnerability of Arab cities, nor to draw up an inventory of the national institutions responsible for sustainable development. Our study takes a critical look, both theoretical and political, and from different perspectives, at the key arguments and the various forms of mobilization.

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